Policy

OTTAWA – Canadian researchers have discovered an infectious superbug
that can be deadly to people with cystic fibrosis, suggesting hospitals need to
screen CF patients for the bacteria and practise stringent infection control
around them.<p>
The drug-resistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was first detected a
decade ago in the British city of Liverpool. But since the superbug migrated to
Canada, physicians have discovered just how deadly it can be to people with
cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease that clogs the lungs and pancreas with
thick mucus.<p>
Compared to a similar strain of the infection that can be treated with
antibiotics, drug-resistant P. aeruginosa can triple the risk of death in CF
patients, researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical
Association.<p>
“We’re finding superbugs in the CF population in Canada that we didn’t know
existed,” said Dr. Shawn Aaron, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital
Research Institute and lead author of the study.<p>
In an effort to reduce the spread of the superbug, Canadian physicians have
already started giving children with cystic fibrosis preventive courses of new-
generation antibiotics.<p>
However, the same measures don’t seem to work in adult CF patients, said
Aaron.<p>
Only two existing antibiotics – meropenem and tobramycin – appear effective
at fighting the superbug in adult CF patients, and those drugs only work when
used in combination.<p>
According to the study, the superbug attacks seven out of every 1,000 CF
patients each year. Among a population of 3,500 Canadians with the disease,
that ratio translates to 25 new cases annually. Of the numbers infected, up to
three people, or 10 per cent, could die every year.<p>
The figures are based on a three-year study of 450 adults at seven CF
clinics across Ontario. If left unchecked, the number of P. aeruginosa
fatalities could rise exponentially as it spreads across North America,
compounding the number of new cases each year, said Aaron.<p>
Worldwide, about 70,000 children and adults suffer from cystic fibrosis.<p>
P. aeruginosa is a bacterium that is commonly found in showers, bathtubs and
hot tubs. It can also live on surfaces of medical equipment.<p>
But the new drug-resistant strain does not seem to come from those sources.
Rather, it has been discovered in the pets of patients with cystic fibrosis,
said Aaron.<p>
In healthy people, the bacterium causes little more than a rash. But in CF
patients, who have weakened immune systems that make them susceptible to
chronic lung infections, drug-resistant P. aeruginosa can be lodged deep in the
lungs and slowly attack the tissues and airways.<p>
Aaron, who’s also the head of respiratory medicine at the Ottawa Hospital,
said CF patients are most likely to be infected by others with the disease.<p>
“CF patients are not a danger to the general population. Just getting
coughed on by a CF patient doesn’t mean you’re going to get sick. But they are
a danger to each other.”<p>
For that reason, hospitals and clinics that treat CF patients must take
extra precautions to limit infection, said Aaron.<p>
For example, CF patients who are admitted to the Ottawa Hospital are given
their own rooms and not permitted to mix with other CF patients. As much as
possible, they are also not clustered on the same ward.<p>
“If we can’t keep them on different wards, there has to be a significant
separation between the two rooms,” said Aaron. “And we don’t allow staff to
go from one CF patient to the next right after each other because it’s possible
the staff could transmit the infection from one patient to another.”<p>
Ottawa Citizen

Ambassador David Jacobson said Tuesday that the U.S. political process could be bogged down over the next two years with the Republicans now holding the majority in Congress, and no other country would feel it more than Canada, its closest trading partner.

CHICAGO – Depression and anxiety could surface in adulthood after an
alcohol-prone adolescence, according to new research that links adult mood
disorders to teen binge drinking.<p>
Researchers at Loyola University in Chicago found the body system that
responds to stress was permanently changed when adolescent lab rats were
exposed to binge amounts of alcohol.<p>
“Exposing young people to alcohol could permanently disrupt normal
connections in the brain that need to be made to ensure healthy adult brain
function,” Toni Pak, the study’s senior author, said in a news release.<p>
Pak said the results from animal testing don’t directly carry over to a
human model, but said the study could indicate a similar result in human adults
if they were binge drinkers during their youth.<p>
Binge drinking is defined as four drinks in one session for a female, while
a male must consume at least five alcoholic beverages in one sitting to meet
the guideline.

OTTAWA – Canada has dropped dramatically in an international ranking
of cigarette package health warnings after snagging top spot a decade ago.<p>
Canada now ranks 15th alongside 18 other countries. The country took the top
spot in 2001 when Health Canada became the first government regulator in the
world to require tobacco companies to put graphic health warnings on half the
panel of cigarette packs.<p>
The new ranking will be released Monday by the Canadian Cancer Society on
the opening day of a World Health Organization tobacco control conference in
Uruguay.<p>
Since 2001, 39 countries have followed Canada’s lead, and many have
surpassed it with bigger and more graphic warnings. Uruguay is now the world
leader, requiring graphic warning images to cover 80 per cent of the surface of
cigarette packages. The Latin American country first introduced warnings in
2006 and has since updated the images three times.<p>
Canada, meanwhile, has not refreshed or enlarged the warnings that appear on
its cigarette packages in a decade, and is now tied with countries such as
Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran and Panama, which have the same
health warning requirements.<p>
“Governments recognize that picture warnings are the way to go, but they
need to be refreshed to maintain the best effectiveness. That’s what other
governments are doing, and these are governments that have far less capacity
than Canada,” said Rob Cunningham, the cancer society’s senior policy analyst.<p>
“If they can do it, we can do it.”<p>
Canada started to modernize tobacco labels in August 2004, but after six
years of research and consultation, the government suspended the initiative
earlier this year while Health Canada bureaucrats prepared new regulations.<p>
The decision to halt the process came after Health Canada last year decided
to increase the warning size from its current 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the
package’s surface, which would have catapulted Canada into the No. 2 spot on
the international ranking. A national toll-free quit line, supported by
provincial health ministers, was also going to appear alongside the larger,
more graphic images.<p>
The Health Department decided to enlarge the visuals after its public-
opinion research showed the half-panel messaging was having less of an effect
on many consumers.<p>
“Everyone seems to want Health Canada to move ahead except the tobacco
industry. I haven’t heard a clear reason as to why Health Canada is not moving
ahead. They’ve done the research,” said Cunningham.<p>
In a written statement, Health Canada declined to respond directly to this
criticism, saying the department “continues to examine the renewal of warning
messages on tobacco packaging but is not ready to move forward at this time.”<p>
In the meantime, federal border officials are working with the RCMP and the
Canada Revenue Agency to combat contraband tobacco, Health Canada said.<p>
The tobacco industry supports this initiative, arguing government resources
should focus on contraband instead of updated regulations on cigarette package
health warnings.<p>
Opposition parties see it differently.<p>
“Health Canada has put a lot of time and money into redesigning new labels,
thinking about increasing the amount of space it takes on packages. Then we
have this announcement that we’re going to focus on contraband, so essentially
when it comes to packaging – which we know works – we’re doing nothing. And the
cigarette industry has publicly applauded this, which begs the question: Is
this really who we want acting as policy advisers to an anti-smoking
campaign?” asked NDP health critic Megan Leslie.<p>
Liberal health critic Ujjal Dosanjh, who served as health minister between
July 2004 to January 2006, added: “It’s in the public interest to proceed with
the larger warnings on cigarette packages and I am actually dumbfounded that
the minister of health wouldn’t stand up for the health of Canadians. It’s her
obligation – she’s supposed to be the advocate of health for Canadians and not
an advocate for the tobacco lobby.”<p>
The Canadian Medical Association Journal also weighed in last week with an
editorial criticizing Health Canada’s “senseless policy” on tobacco-warning
labels.<p>
“We should all be outraged about the suspension of efforts to renew tobacco
warning labels,” stated the editorial.<p>
Twitter.com/sarah_schmidt_

Middle-age women who are moderate imbibers are more likely than
teetotallers to be “successful survivors” – free of major chronic diseases in
their old age, according to a new study.<p>
The study is one of the first to link moderate alcohol consumption – 15 to
30 grams daily, or the equivalent of one to two drinks – with “successful
aging.”<p>
“I think it’s important to look at this issue of whether having a few
drinks a day in mid-life impacts health as you get older,” says Dr. Qi Sun of
Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.<p>
The study is based on an analysis of data from the U.S. Nurses’ Health Study,
one of the largest and longest running trials of its kind. It began in 1976,
with more than 121,000 nurses ages 30 to 55, who have been followed every two
years.<p>
Sun and colleagues looked at nearly 14,000 nurses who survived until at
least age 70. They looked at how much the women reported drinking when they
were in their late 50s.<p>
They found that drinking 15 to 30 grams of alcohol a day in mid-life was
associated with a 26 per cent increase in survival odds over non-drinkers.
Women who drank in moderation regularly had higher odds of living to at least
age 70, the researchers found.<p>
The findings held after the researchers took smoking, weight, physical
activity and other factors into account.<p>
“Successful survival” was defined as being free of 11 major chronic
diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and Parkinson’s disease.<p>
“They also have to be free of any major cognitive impairment, free of any
major physical limitations and also have good mental health,” Sun says.<p>
He said moderate drinking has been shown to lower the risk of heart disease,
insulin resistance and inflammation in the body.<p>
Sun stressed that heavy drinking “has numerous adverse effects on human
health,” including an increased risk of cancer.<p>
“The take-home message is that we demonstrated some evidence that moderate
alcohol consumption at mid-life does lead to better health when you’re older,”
Sun says.<p>
“For abstainers, there are other effective ways to reduce your risk of
chronic disease. If you can lose a few pounds and engage in moderate to
vigorous physical activity you can increase your chance to be healthy at an
older age dramatically.”<p>
The study is one of several on alcohol being presented this week at the
American Heart Association’s scientific sessions in Chicago. Other researchers,
who also used data from the Nurses’ Health Study involving about 85,000 women,
are reporting that women who had up to one drink a day had a 20 per cent lower
risk of stroke compared to women who did not drink.<p>
All the women, who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at the
start of the study, were followed from 1980 to 2006, to see how many suffered a
stroke.<p>
A total of 2,257 strokes occurred. Up to one drink a day was associated with
a decreased risk of stroke.<p>
However, among women taking hormone replacement therapy, higher intakes of
alcohol – 30 grams a day or more – were at a 44 per cent increased risk of
stroke compared to women who didn’t drink.<p>
Alcohol has anti-clotting effects, said Dr. Monik Jimenez, a post-doctoral
fellow in the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
and Harvard University. It also increases HDL, the so-called “good
cholesterol” that appears to protect against atherosclerosis – hardening of
the arteries.<p>
skirkey(at)postmedia.com

An implantable device that keeps the heart’s muscles continuously
contracting in sync helps more patients with heart failure stay alive and out
of hospital than standard defibrillators alone, a Canadian-led trial has found.<p>
The device has the potential to save thousands of lives in Canada alone,
according to the researchers, whose study was published Sunday in the New
England Journal of Medicine.<p>
“This therapy really prolongs life,” says Dr. Anthony Tang, who co-led the
study with Dr. George Wells at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.<p>
Heart failure occurs when the organ’s left ventricle can no longer pump
enough blood to the body’s other organs. The condition is increasing as more
people survive heart attacks but are left with damaged hearts.<p>
An estimated 500,000 Canadians are living with heart failure; 50,000 new
cases are diagnosed each year, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
Patients are at a high risk of sudden death. As many as 50 per cent of patients
die within five years of a diagnosis.<p>
If the heart is dilated, patients are often fitted with miniature
defibrillators that monitor the heart rate, delivering electrical jolts when
needed to shock the organ back into a normal rhythm.<p>
A newer device called CRT – cardiac resynchronization therapy – goes further
by pacing the heart continuously, and keeping contractions in different parts
of the heart working in unison.<p>
The study involved nearly 1,800 patients in 24 centres in Canada, Australia,
Europe and Turkey; 1,617 patients came from Canada. Half were fitted with a
defibrillator alone, the other half a defibrillator and CRT. Both groups also
received medication. Patients were followed, on average, for more than three
years.<p>
Patients in the CRT group were 25 per cent less likely to die or to be
hospitalized with heart failure over the study period.<p>
“The overall effect is significant enough that we can conclusively say that
this therapy should be considered in most of these patients,” says Tang, who
is also a professor of medicine at the Island Medical Program at the University
of British Columbia.<p>
“In sicker people, it allows them to have a better quality of life and to
exercise better,” he said.<p>
In some patients, the device even appeared to shrink the heart.<p>
Still, twice as many patients in the CRT group experienced device or implant-
related complications, such as infections and bleeding. “They weren’t life-
threatening. Nobody died from these adverse events,” Tang said.<p>
Most complications involved the leads – the insulated wires that transmit
signals and electrical impulses to the heart to co-ordinate contractions –
getting jarred loose.<p>
END OPTIONAL TRIM.<p>
Cost could be a sticking point. A regular defibrillator costs about $20,000,
but with CRT patients, you have to add another $7,000, Tang said. He said the
devices are covered by most provincial health plans.<p>
Tang said 20 per cent of Canadians with heart failure – about 100,000 people
– could benefit from CRT.<p>
“If you are able to save one life out of 20 even, that’s quite a few
thousand people.”<p>
skirkey(at)postmedia.com<p>
Twitter.com/sharon_kirkey

An implantable device that keeps the heart’s muscles continuously
contracting in sync helps more patients with heart failure stay alive and out
of hospital than standard pacemakers alone, a Canadian-led trial has found.<p>
The device has the potential to save thousands of lives in Canada alone,
according to the researchers, whose study was published Sunday in the New
England Journal of Medicine.<p>
“This therapy really prolongs life,” says Dr. Anthony Tang, who co-led the
study with Dr. George Wells at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.<p>
Heart failure occurs when the organ’s left ventricle can no longer pump
enough blood to the body’s other organs. The condition is increasing as more
people survive heart attacks but are left with damaged hearts.<p>
An estimated 500,000 Canadians are living with heart failure; 50,000 new
cases are diagnosed each year, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
Patients are at a high risk of sudden death. As many as 50 per cent of patients
die within five years of a diagnosis.<p>
If the heart is dilated, patients are often fitted with miniature
defibrillators that monitor the heart rate, delivering electrical jolts when
needed to shock the organ back into a normal rhythm.<p>
A newer device called CRT – cardiac resynchronization therapy – goes further
by pacing the heart continuously, and keeping contractions in different parts
of the heart working in unison.<p>
The study involved nearly 1,800 patients in 24 centres in Canada, Australia,
Europe and Turkey; 1,617 patients came from Canada. Half were fitted with a
defibrillator alone, the other half a defibrillator and CRT. Both groups also
received medication. Patients were followed, on average, for more than three
years.<p>
Patients in the CRT group were 25 per cent less likely to die or to be
hospitalized with heart failure over the study period.<p>
“The overall effect is significant enough that we can conclusively say that
this therapy should be considered in most of these patients,” says Tang, who
is also a professor of medicine at the Island Medical Program at the University
of British Columbia.<p>
“In sicker people, it allows them to have a better quality of life and to
exercise better,” he said.<p>
In some patients, the device even appeared to shrink the heart.<p>
Still, twice as many patients in the CRT group experienced device or implant-
related complications, such as infections and bleeding. “They weren’t life-
threatening. Nobody died from these adverse events,” Tang said.<p>
Most complications involved the leads – the insulated wires that transmit
signals and electrical impulses to the heart to co-ordinate contractions –
getting jarred loose.<p>
END OPTIONAL TRIM.<p>
Cost could be a sticking point. A regular defibrillator costs about $20,000,
but with CRT patients, you have to add another $7,000, Tang said. He said the
devices are covered by most provincial health plans.<p>
Tang said 20 per cent of Canadians with heart failure – about 100,000 people
– could benefit from CRT.<p>
“If you are able to save one life out of 20 even, that’s quite a few
thousand people.”<p>
skirkey(at)postmedia.com<p>
Twitter.com/sharon_kirkey

Canadian municipal officials say they’re nervous after the departure of former environment minister Jim Prentice as they search for billions of dollars to meet new standards that crack down on raw sewage and water pollution.

People who suffer from a phantom and constant ringing in their ears –
a condition known as tinnitus – had long been told the noise was all in their
head.<p>
It turns out, it is.<p>
A research team from McMaster University in Hamilton and several other
universities in Canada and the United States have pinpointed the source of the
often debilitating condition that affects millions of people worldwide and has
a dramatic impact on the quality of their lives.<p>
In an article published in the latest edition of The Journal of Neuroscience,
scientists report that the tinnitus sound – described by many sufferers as a
constant high-pitched ringing or hissing noise – is generated by neurons firing
in the brain, not the ear.<p>
“We found that tinnitus is generated not in the ear but by changes that
occur in the brain when hearing loss occurs,” said Larry Roberts, a
neuroscientist and the lead researcher from McMaster. “It’s hearing loss
associated with noise exposure that causes the majority of the cases.”<p>
The research was conducted in conjunction with scientists from the
universities of Calgary, Southern Illinois and Michigan, the Cleveland Clinic
and Harvard University.<p>
Roberts said that through studies on animals, research showed that if the
auditory nerve of a tinnitus sufferer is severed, the condition doesn’t
disappear. That means the root of the issue lies not in the ears, but in the
brain, he said.<p>
And while the condition has been attributed to everything from loud noises,
to antibiotic use and stress, no definitive cause or cure has been found, said
Roberts.<p>
Roberts said the new research also doesn’t mean a cure is imminent.<p>
And without a cure, Roberts said, the condition can drive people to
depression or even suicide unless they are able to get used to the noise and
dislocate themselves from the emotional stress.<p>
Most famously, the phantom ringing of tinnitus has been theorized as the
reason why 19th century painter Vincent van Gogh cut off his own ear.<p>
For Elizabeth Eayrs, a former Toronto city councillor and the founder of the
Tinnitus Association of Canada, she said she felt like she couldn’t go on when
she was first afflicted in the mid-1970s, after heading home from a
particularly raucous council meeting.<p>
“It was as though there were large rocks or stones being shifted back and
forth in a metal container,” she said. “But each person has a unique sound.”<p>
Described as a high-pitched tone by most, Eayrs said it is also heard as
frying, sizzling, steaming, or even a low roaring, like a diesel truck running
continuously.<p>
But the 83-year-old Eayrs said she has gotten used to the rumbling that
never stops.<p>
“As I get older, it’s almost like I’m forgetting about it,” she said.<p>
And her story is not uncommon.<p>
The Tinnitus Association of Canada estimates there are approximately 360,000
people with the condition in Canada, of which 150,000 find it debilitating in
some way.<p>
And in the U.S., tinnitus is the No. 1 service-connected disability of
veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, totalling 760,000 vets at the end
of 2009.<p>
While numbers on Canadian veterans weren’t readily available, Zofia Wald-
Mroz, an audiologist at the Perley and Rideau Veterans Health Centre in Ottawa,
said a number of soldiers returning from Afghanistan have sought help.<p>
“They are exposed to an incredible amount of noise from gunfire,
helicopters and concussive explosions that make them vulnerable to problems
with their ears,” she said.<p>
Roberts said there may also be an increase in cases of tinnitus as a
consequence of mild hearing losses, especially among young people who are
growing up in a generation where earbud-style headphones are commonly used.<p>
“It’s not strange to sit on a bus or the subway and hear somebody with
music blaring from their headphones,” he said. “They might not pay the price
now, but they will later.”

Adult day programs that provide meals, social connections and
activities for older adults – and a reprieve for stressed caregivers – are
sparking greater interest as one answer to the question of how countries like
Canada will deal with an aging population.<p>
These programs have existed for three decades, but they remain in many ways
an underused and unknown resource. Yet those in the eldercare field say they
could be crucial in preventing Canada’s health and long-term care systems – and
family caregivers themselves – from collapsing under the strain of the years to
come.<p>
The first of the baby boomers will turn 65 next year, and Statistics Canada
estimates that by 2016, the 65-plus population will outnumber children under 15.<p>
“People see it as babysitting for seniors, and we really have to get
through that perception,” says Sarah Price, president of the fledgling
Canadian Coalition of Adult Day Services and director of dementia care programs
with the Alzheimer’s Society of Calgary. “The concept is similar, certainly,
in the sense that you have a family member and you’re taking them somewhere to
spend the day, but the social programming, the peer support that they’re
getting . . . that’s all very different.”<p>
Many adult day programs have a social or recreational focus, bringing
members together to share fun activities and build friendships, she says, while
others take on a “medical model” geared toward specific conditions, such as
dementia or stroke recovery.<p>
Price helped establish the coalition one year ago after realizing there was
only a “patchwork” of grassroots organizations in Canada. Their U.S.
counterpart, the National Adult Day Services Association, has a 30-year history.<p>
Without resources such as adult day programs, experts say there are few
options available to adult child caregivers who work full time or spouses who
need a break, and these programs are critical to helping people “age in place.
”<p>
“People who are attending the programs want to continue staying at home as
long as possible, in order to delay moving into residential long-term care,”
says Teresa Johnson, president of the U.S. association. “As long as they can
get that care in the community, it’s much more cost-effective to serve them in
those group settings than for them to go into long-term care.”<p>
The holidays often spur changes in eldercare because family members who may
not have seen each other all year are together and changes in older loved ones
suddenly become obvious, she says.<p>
A recent MetLife national study of adult day programs in the U.S. found more
than 4,600 centres providing adult day programs, a 35 per cent increase since a
previous study in 2002. More than 260,000 participants and family caregivers
took advantage of the programs, a 63 per cent jump over eight years earlier. No
comparable statistics were available for Canada.<p>
The Canadian coalition has so far gathered 43 members within Alberta, Price
says, with others from British Columbia, Saskatchewan and the Maritimes.<p>
The difference in health-care systems has led to more private day programs
in the U.S., she says, but as Canadian families juggle their needs with the
limits of what government home-care programs will provide – in Calgary,
individuals are allotted two days a week in day programs – she predicts more
private options will appear in Canada.<p>
“Not only is there the opportunity for these services to grow, but they
could make a huge difference in the lives of caregivers,” says Colin Milner,
CEO of the Vancouver-based International Council on Active Aging. “It’s like
the Ghostbusters: when you need time on your own, who you gonna call?”<p>
He plans to devote part of his address at the ICAA’s annual conference next
month to adult day programs. Milner says governments are wrong to look at adult
day programs as something they offer “philanthropically,” because these sorts
of programs could save money and lives by providing more cost-effective care
and alleviating stress on caregivers who typically see their own health decline
in tandem with the person for whom they are caring.<p>
Vancouver’s Ruth Hughes was initially unimpressed by her adult day program
experience. The 98-year-old has vision and hearing loss, but she was “bored
out of my tree” by activities such as a Jeopardy game that asked for the name
of three fall vegetables.<p>
“We hear it over and over again that if you don’t use it, you lose it, and
yet if you give them pap, that’s what you’re going to get back,” Hughes says.<p>
She stuck with the program and now attends two days a week, and she’s one of
three people out of the group of 30 who can stand for exercise, something the
instructors use as motivation for everyone else.<p>
“You get to be 97 or in that range, you’re darned happy when someone wants
you around,” Hughes says, chuckling. “You come to see the people.”<p>
Clarissa Green, a therapist in Vancouver who works with families dealing
with aging issues, wants to see more seniors involved in planning these
programs so it’s not just assumed that a room full of octogenarians will enjoy
each other’s company because they were born in the same decade.<p>
“The first thing I often hear is that it’s filled with a bunch of old
people, and this is said by people who are 78 and 88 and 98,” she says, of
objections to day programs. “There’s nothing to suggest that seniors have
fewer interests than you or I do. But I think we’re still breaking loose from a
lot of stereotyping about what old people are all about.”<p>
In Ottawa, The Good Companions day program provides meals, non-
denominational worship services, exercise and entertainment for 25 seniors
three days a week. On a recent afternoon, a piano player bantered with an
audience of “recycled teenagers” while Edward Susser, 93, the centre’s
resident flirt, wove his way between the chairs, seeking a dance partner.<p>
After he was rebuffed by a couple of women in the group, a volunteer seven
decades his junior joined him on the dance floor and they performed a waltz-
Hokey Pokey hybrid through several songs.<p>
“I love them all,” Susser said of the ladies. “Especially when they’re
under 90.”<p>
Sharon Oatway, the day centre director, says they might be the only source
of social interaction for members who are isolated. Staff and volunteers watch
for illness, unwashed clothing or troubles completing daily activities, which
might signal a member needs a re-assessment by the Community Care Access
Centres that co-ordinate care for seniors in Ontario.<p>
But Oatway echoes others in the field in pointing out that programs like
theirs really serve two groups of clients.<p>
“All day programs also are respite care for the caregivers. It gives the
caregiver a bit of time for themselves, to collect themselves. Maybe they have
to do errands or they have a recreational program they want to take themselves,
” she says. “If not, a lot of those people who didn’t get the respite would
end up being clients themselves.”<p>
Twitter.com/sproudfoot

Global News<p>
PORT HOPE, Ont. – The Ontario community of Port Hope is a toxic time bomb
that is dangerous for residents and should be entirely relocated, according to
a prominent doctor and anti-nuclear activist.<p>
Dr. Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician and author, is set to visit the
community of about 16,000 next week, to sound the alarm about the radium in the
soil of their parks, streets and backyards.<p>
Caldicott believes the only safe solution is to relocate the entire town.<p>
“This is what the Canadian government should do,” she said. “This is a
matter of medical emergency, they should be moved."<p>
There are approximately 4,500 contaminated properties in Port Hope, located
on the shores of Lake Ontario, about 150 kilometres northeast of Toronto.<p>
It is estimated that there are millions of metric tons of soil contaminated
with radioactive waste and heavy metals in the area.<p>
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says 40 studies have been conducted
and found no unusual health problems, and that a cleanup project being
undertaken – the largest radioactive waste cleanup in Canadian history – is
safe for residents.<p>
“Port Hope is a safe and healthy community and the radiation levels and
health of our citizens is consistent with any city in Ontario and, in fact,
Canada,” says Port Hope Mayor Linda Thompson.<p>
Low-level radioactive material has been around since the 1930s. It came from
Eldorado Nuclear Limited, now known as Cameco. A plant that once processed
uranium for the first atomic bomb.

Taking any public health measures to ban or control bisphenol A — as Canada recently did — is premature since evidence of its alleged health risks is not strong enough, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

OTTAWA-The U.S. government on Wednesday proposed to use the image of
a dying Canadian anti-smoker activist on cigarette packages in the United
States in an effort to curb smoking.<p>
Barb Tarbox of Edmonton died of cancer in 2003 of age of 42, but before she
died, Tarbox documented her battle as part of an anti-smoking campaign to
convince young people not to smoke. Graphic photos of a dying Tarbox are now on
the short list of images to cover half the panel on cigarette packs in the U.S.<p>
Thirty-six images are under consideration, and a final list of nine images
will be announced by June as the U.S. government works to update – and enlarge –
warnings that appear on cigarette packs in the United States.<p>
Health Canada had also been considering using Tarbox’s image as part of a
plan to require more graphic and larger health warnings on cigarette packs sold
in Canada. But those plans, under development since 2004, have stalled after a
flurry of activity on the file last year.<p>
For example, Health Canada, was expected to table a plan in January
requiring tobacco companies to put more graphic warnings covering 75 per cent
of cigarette packs. But those regulatory plans were dropped after Health Canada
shared mock-ups of supersized new warning labels with public-health advocates.
The larger, more graphic images would also be accompanied by a national toll-
free quit line.<p>
Health Canada settled on these bigger warnings and updated visuals after its
own public-opinion research showed many smokers had dulled to the government’s
graphic messages covering half the panel on cigarette packs, introduced in
Canada in 2000 as an international first.<p>
Independent research pointed to the same trend, showing a decline in
salience of warning labels in Canada over time.<p>
Canada became the first country in the world in 2000 when Health Canada made
it mandatory for tobacco companies to cover half the panel of cigarette packs
with graphic images and warning on cigarette packs.